


You'll be the Deaf of Us

by ALittleBitofThis



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: American Sign Language, B.A.R.F. | Binarily Augmented Retro Framing, Bargaining, Deaf, Deaf Character, Insecure Tony, Missions Gone Wrong, Tony-centric, confused captors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 12:27:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17141753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALittleBitofThis/pseuds/ALittleBitofThis
Summary: Tony is deaf, but he hasn't told the Avengers about it. They find out in a less-than-intended way.





	You'll be the Deaf of Us

When the EMP goes off, Tony’s armor goes dark, and he knows from the sudden silence that the suit isn’t the only thing that’s gone off. He feels himself falling, but his HUD is powered down, so he can’t see. All he can do is brace himself for hitting the ground. Luckily, he wasn’t too high up, and the shock absorbers cushion his fall for the most part.

Tony feels his throat vibrate with a groan, and he gropes for the emergency release on his helmet. It pops off, and Tony looks at the cold, silent cement under him. Shit. He tears off one of his gauntlets to touch the cement with his fingers. He can feel vibrations getting closer. He rolls onto his back to see a bad guy running at him, and he uses his other gauntlet to blast the guy back.

Another one is there quickly, and his gun is in Tony’s face. His mouth is moving, but no words come out. Tony can’t tell what he wants, but he can tell he probably can’t blast this guy without getting shot. Where’s the rest of the team? He still doesn’t understand the guy, but reading lips seems to suggest he wants him to put his hands up, so Tony does. This is not how he thought his day would go.

* * *

Tony’s hands are bound, so he can’t get to his ear to try and restart his hearing aids. They’ve also blindfolded him, so he’s down to just three senses now- touch, scent, and taste. All he can smell is something musty, and he’s not eating, so really, touch is all he’s got. They shove him down a hallway, and all he can do is trust the hand securely holding his bicep to keep him from running into walls. There’s a pull on his arm, so he stops for a moment before being shoved forward. He lets out a breath of relief when the blindfold is ripped off.

He’s in a circular room, as are most of his teammates. Banner and Thor are missing (probably on the Quinjet getting backup), but Natasha, Clint, Steve, Sam, and Rhodes are there. So… this mission did  _ not _ go as planned to say the least. Their mouths are moving, but Tony can’t hear a thing, and he can’t read all of their lips at once, so he just ignores them. Tony’s shackled to one of the designated spots, and he’s sat down against the wall.

His teammates keep trying to talk to him, but when they receive no response, they get increasingly confused. Rhodes’ mouth moves and everyone else’s stop. Tony looks directly at Rhodey, trying to send signals with his eyes.

‘Can you hear us?’ He mouths. Tony shakes his head, and Rhodes frowns. He opens his mouth to tell the rest of the team, but they’re interrupted when more men come pouring into the room. Tony can’t really see them now. Someone stands in front of Tony, and the man looks up.

It’s an ugly-ass dude, and he grabs a fistful of Stark’s hair, pulling his head back. His mouth is moving, and Tony tries to make out what it says. ‘Tell me about the primary august head retro faming tech’ Tony blinks. He definitely did not get that last part.

“Can you repeat that?” Tony says after a long moment. He feels pain spread across his entire face as he’s backhanded. He looks up as quickly as he can to catch words.

‘-play games with me, Stark,’ His lips say. The man paces away from him and grabs a gun from a guard. When he starts to walk back, Tony can see his mouth moving, and Tony frowns.

‘-build an empire.’ If there were more words there, he totally missed it. This is not really how he wanted to tell the team about this, but interrogation’s not going to go well if the guy keeps talking to him.

“I can’t hear you,” Tony says. The man’s face twists in annoyance, and he clicks off the safety. “I’m serious,” Tony adds quickly. He sees a couple heads turn in Rhodes’ direction, and someone moves out of the way in time for Tony to see a rifle butt collide with his best friend’s head. Rhodes falls to the side, and the tip of the barrel is pressed into his hair, pressing his head into the ground

“No!” Tony protests. The leader turns to Tony with a grin.

‘Tell me now it works,’ Tony takes a moment to deduce a more logical meaning. How what works?

“What?” He asks. The man scowls and starts to turn towards Rhodes. “Wait! I’m deaf!”

All motion in the room stops, and he looks back to the billionaire with an amused look. ‘Is that your best recluse? We wood no if the worlds most famous millionaire was death.’

“Your EMP took out my hearing aids,” Tony explains. He hopes he isn’t speaking too quiet or too loud, but he can’t tell the volume any way other than the vibrations of his throat. He looks past the leader to see Rhodes, and Rhodey’s mouth starts to move, but Tony can’t read him when his face is smushed into the ground, and the gunman kicks Rhodes before he gets more than a few words out.

‘Let him peak,’ The leader orders, not taking his eyes off Tony. He sees Rhodes mouth move again, and then the leader twists to look at him. The leader turns back to Tony, and Tony grits his teeth when his head is tilted to the side roughly. The leader’s other hand pulls at his ear for a moment before letting go all at once. He’s seen the earpiece. The leader turns to Rhodes one more time, and Tony can see his lips moving to say ‘Yes’.

There’s a lot of movement at once. Rhodes is unshackled from the wall, and he’s pulled across the room. They force him to his knees in front of Tony, and someone presses a gun against his head. Around the room, other guards have the rest of the team at gunpoint as well. The leader pulls out a knife and cuts through the ropes on both Tony and Rhodey’s wrists. The leader looks at Rhodey and says something.

_ ‘He wants me to translate for him. You okay?’ _ Rhodes signs.

_ ‘Yes,’ _ Tony makes the ‘okay’ signal with one hand, and looks up at the leader. His mouth is moving again, and Tony tries to make it out, but he has some big words, and he needs Rhodes to translate it. Rhodey frowns as the man speaks, and then he turns to Tony.

_ ‘He wants you to give them the blueprints and patents for the binary augmented retro-active technology that you demonstrated at MIT.’ _ Rhodes explains, and Tony raises his eyebrows.  _ Oh. _ That makes so much more sense.

_ ‘Or what? Ask him if people didn’t learn from the middle eastern incident that extorting me doesn’t usually work out. People that out of the loop don’t deserve tech this advanced.’ _

_ ‘There’s guns to everyone’s heads, Tony. Are you sure sass is the route you want to take?’ _ Rhodes shakes his head in exasperation when Tony nods and tilts his head towards the leader pointedly.

‘Or what?’ He sees Rhodes say. He glares at his best friend but waits until it’s his turn to speak again to avoid suspicion that they’re off-topic.

_ ‘He’ll torture and kill the team,’ _ Rhodes signs.

_ ‘The usual? That’s not original. Again, he doesn’t deserve this tech. Also, you’re lame for not including my comments.’ _

_ ‘Your sassy comments will get us killed. What do you want me to say?’ _

_ ‘It’s part of my charm. We’ll stall. Ask him why he wants it,’ _ Tony relaxes a little as Rhodes and the leader get into a conversation, and he can tell Rhodey is purposely being a little difficult to buy them more time. Rhodes just keeps asking questions under Tony’s direction.

The leader isn’t sure which of the info Tony does or doesn’t need, so he has no choice but to answer as they go. Soon, they’ve discussed Tony’s desire for a business deal, confidentiality, access to supplies, letting the team go, why he wants the tech, What he plans to do with the tech, who he plans to market to, what company he’s going to partner with for marketing, if he wants an international patent, if he’s going to upcharge a lot, if they’ll continue development, and several more things. It takes a solid 20 minutes or so before the leader’s annoyance breaks through.

He suddenly backhands Rhodey, yelling at him. Tony can actually feel the vibrations of the leader’s noise. Rhodey looks back to Tony.

_ ‘He said he knows we’re stalling now.’ _ Rhodes signs, and Tony can see a spot where his lip has split.

_ ‘So? He’s not very persuasive. What’s he going to do about it?’ _ Tony ends with a shrug. Rhodes rolls his eyes and says something to the leader. The leader twists his head and says something to someone behind him. Rhodey’s mouth is moving quickly, and Tony can’t keep up enough to understand him, and Rhodes suddenly flinches.

_ ‘What happened?!’ _ Tony demands, exaggerating his movements.

_ ‘They shot Steve,’  _ Rhodey adds on quickly,  _ ‘In the leg.’ _ Tony’s face drops. His fault. That’s  _ his _ fault. Shit. Shit. Shit! Tony got his friend shot! Tony bites his lip.

_ ‘What does he want in exchange for letting them go?’ _ Tony asks. Rhodes asks for him.

_ ‘He wants you to explain the basis of the technology and draw a schematic. When you’re done he’ll let Steve and Sam go, but everyone else stays until you’ve drawn more detailed blueprints and they make a prototype. You don’t get to build it yourself. I guess they have learned,’ _ Rhodes looks glum, and someone is already walking closer with a notepad. Tony breathes out through his nose in defeat. The infinity stones are one thing, but B.A.R.F. isn’t worth getting his teammates killed.

_ ‘Okay. I’ll get the first part done to get Steve out of here for medical attention, but will probably stall the second part,’ _ Tony tells Rhodes.  _ ‘The tech works by attaching an implant to a pair of glasses. It uses magnetic stimulation to stimulate the hippocampus of the brain, but it also enhances hallucinatory systems. I can draw a simple diagram for them.’ _

Rhodes does his best to explain it to their captors, but he isn’t so good at all this tech stuff, so he stumbles on his words a few times. The woman who had been writing on the notepad flips to a new page and hands him both the pad and pen. Tony sketches out a rough diagram, trying to keep it detailed enough that they’ll accept it and let Steve, but rough enough that he’s done quickly. He takes one last glance over the page and slowly offers it up.

Thor chooses that moment to charge in, literally breaking through the wall. The Hulk is there too, and Tony pulls Rhodey out of the way of some flying debris. Rhodes quickly signs that he’s going to help the others. He can feel the pounding of heavy footsteps through the floor, but he doesn’t look up to see the fight. The notepad is on the ground, and he scrambles toward it. He needs to destroy it. Someone kicks him, and he falls onto his side. A hand forces him onto his back, and a foot steps on his chest. A gun is pointed at him, but it’s only for a second before Thor decks him off. The fight is done.

* * *

Tony gets his armor off first and leaves it on the floor of the Quinjet as he goes straight for the battery drawer. He takes his hearing aids out and fixes them. It feels like a wave of relief when he can hear again.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Natasha asks. Tony flinches and adjusts his volume a little.

"I didn’t think it was relevant,” Tony answers plainly. He brushes past her to pick up his suit.

“It seemed kinda relevant today,” Steve says, a little bitterly. In his defense, he’s struggling to sit still while Clint looks for the bullet in his thigh. Tony looks to Rhodes for help, and the best friend moves to stand a little closer to him.

“I… uh,” Tony turns around to hide his face, fiddling with some controls. “I’m already a liability, so it just seemed like something else to add to the heap.” The ship is quiet for a moment.

“Being deaf isn’t a liability,” Clint says. He seems undisturbed, pulling the bullet from Steve’s flesh in a fluid motion. “It’s something that can be exploited, sure. But it’s not something to be ashamed of.”

“Tony,” Steve calls, and Tony finally turns around to face the team. “We all have weak points, but part of being on a team is telling each other about those points so we can account for it.”

“Yeah,” Tony takes a deep breath and drums his fingers on the counter. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Natasha rubs his shoulder. “Just let us know about stuff like this, got it?” Tony nods, relieved that they don’t seem angry or appalled by him. Where the hell did he find such a good group of people?

“Got it,” Tony rubs at his ear, trying to downplay all his emotions. He puts on the same suave expression as always. “I’m gonna go help Banner in the cockpit.”

“Piece of work, huh?” Rhodes chuckles to Natasha once Tony is gone.

“I heard that!” Tony yells defiantly.

“I know.”


End file.
